This is Dr. Cheryl Anderson's application for a NHLBI Mentored Career Development Award to Promote Faculty Diversity in Biomedical Research (K01). Cheryl Anderson, PhD, MPH is a nutritional epidemiologist and has a faculty position as an Assistant Scientist in the department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (Hopkins). Dr. Anderson's research interests center around nutrition as a means to prevent cardiovascular disease (CVD) in minority and underserved populations. Her long-term goal is to combine her interdisciplinary training in health behavior, epidemiology and nutritional sciences to conduct observational and clinical studies of CVD. In this application, Dr. Anderson outlines a career development and research plan that provides critical new scientific skills and extend her research capabilities, to enhance her development into an independent scientist. Lawrence Appel, MD, MPH will mentor Dr. Anderson in the proposed research. Dr. Appel is a recognized expert in CVD prevention through both pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic (diet) approaches. He is a professor of medicine, epidemiology and international health (nutrition) at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Dr. Anderson has also assembled an advisory committee of accomplished researchers to provide scientific and career development advice, as well as evaluate her progress. The objectives of Dr. Anderson's research plan are to examine the main and interactive effects of dietary sodium and potassium intake (measured by 24-hour urinary excretion) on echocardiographic left ventricular (LV) mass and clinical CVD. Her research will be conducted within the context of the NIH-funded African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension (AASK) study. She will use do secondary analyses of data from both the AASK trial and AASK cohort study. The ongoing AASK cohort study is a prospective, observational study that is an extension of the AASK trial which tested the effects of three anti-hypertensive therapies and two levels of blood pressure control on progression of kidney disease. Dr. Anderson will also conduct additional (de-novo) data collection, in a subcohort of AASK, to characterize the sources of dietary sodium and potassium in the cohort - a highly relevant clinical issue. Dr. Anderson is in a supportive institutional environment at Hopkins that maximizes her potential to establish an independent, competitive research agenga that will support a prolific academic career.